Cool Ad Watch

Its ingeniousness is far outweighed by its invasiveness. … I think the bench imprint-vertising still takes the annoying cake, but this here is close. I’ve been meaning to post this obnoxious piece of Ad Creep for months (It’s from 2005, before I started this stupid site.). This is the ambient ad equivalent of lighting a bag of dog shit on fire, ringing the doorbell, and running.

The ad sparked a vigorous debate in the comments section. One Copyranter reader:

You know I like you, but you are way way way out in left field on this one. For me, this is one of the smartest most original ads ever created, and the majority of creatives agree with that. I’d be happy to have someone put that on my door, because then I’d put it on my neighbor’s!

Another counters:

People have peepholes on their door for a reason. Sure, most of us don’t actually need them, but not everyone’s neighbourhood/life situation/sense of security is going to let them be ok with an advertiser (a) blocking their peephole so it doesn’t work, and (b) requiring them to step outside to fix it. Next up: Ads that involve blocking people’s fire escapes or disabling their locks.